Cardboard Whore
by AryaTyrell
Summary: Lily is PMSing. Josh must deal.


**Hey... why are you staring at me with that angry look on your face? Yes, I _know _I have ten different multi-chapters to finish but I just couldn't resist making this one! By-the-way, since Lily is an OC, here's some background information on her: Her mom's a doctor, which is how her and Josh met, and it's why they were called to Terra Nova. Also, they're best friends. **

**I might possibly bring Lily back for a multi-chapter, but I'm still thinking about it. I actually have already written the climax of that story and just kind of formulated the plotline from there. What do you guys think? I think it's kind of unhealthy, seeing as I've never actually finished a multi-chapter before... **

**RANDOM NOTE: Guys, I think I just _gave_ Josh's room a bookshelf. It's only the first few episodes, though, you never know... he could turn into a major bookworm or something. :) **

**Uh... yeah. I think that's all you need to know. Happy reading :) **

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><p>"Ugghhh," Lily groaned again, kicking up her leg and letting it fall back to the floor again.<p>

"What is it," Josh returned flatly, his eyes not leaving page 87 favorite book, T_he Catcher in the Rye._

"Nothing," Lily sighed. They were in Josh's bedroom, where Josh went to read and be alone, but this time Lily had insisted on following him for the sole purpose of moaning in two-minute intervals.

About two minutes later, Lily said:

"Urghmf glbr!" She raised her arms up in frustration, strangled an invisible stranger with her hands, then let them fall again. She was sprawled out on her back on the floor, arms and legs spread-eagle.

"Lily," Josh sighed, snapping his book shut dramatically (he immediately regretted this decision—he should have at least kept a finger surreptitiously in his place!), "you've been here for thirty minutes and all you've done is groan every ninety seconds. What do you want?"

"No, it's just…" Lily shot him a pointed look (which was not nearly as clear from her horizontal position) "—Cramps."

Josh nodded his head. "Mom said something about how the fresh air and food affect our bodies from what we're used to in 2149." Satisfied, he reopened _The Catcher In The Rye,_ beginning the search for his page number.

"No, Josh," Lily spat, rolling her eyes and throwing in an exasperated Uh! "Not those kinds of cramps."

Josh frowned in thought, attempting to piece together this information.

"Oh," he squeaked, blushing.

Lily leapt from the ground (much more nimbly than someone allegedly pained by cramps should be) and scurried over to Josh.

"It's just that usually your mom's got something for my cramps, and she knows even before I do when it's going to start, and I'll go into the bathroom and there'll be Kotex and everything—" At the word 'Kotex' the Josh slammed shut his book again and rose to his feet, spontaneously deciding to find its place on the shelves. To his detriment, Lily trailed behind, grasping his forearm.

"—but this time it's started early, God knows why, and so I guess she's clean out of medicine and also these cramps are really, really bad, Josh, really bad, and I was just hoping maybe possibly—" Here she sped up beyond imagination "—you could just make a quick stop off at the general store, and it won't even take that long, you just have to go in and grab the Midol and the tamp—"

"All right, all right!" Josh burst out. "I'll do it. You don't have to say…that."

Lily popped a hip, the earnest pleading look replaced by a more familiar evil smile.

"What, you mean…tampon?"

"Ah!" Josh squeaked, an unintentional outburst. He cleared his throat and resumed placing _The Catcher In The Rye_ back on the shelves.

"Menstrual cramps?" Lily prodded. Josh turned the color of the 2149 sky and whirled around, pretending to search the shelves for…something.

"Period!" Lily shouted. "Ovaries! Uterus! Fallopian tubes!"

The back of his neck looked like it might burst into flames at any second.

Lily allowed a dramatic pause. Then she leaned up against his back, leaning onto her tiptoes to whisper into his ear,

"Vaginal cavity?"

He literally jumped, knocking over a shelf of books all about science fiction. Lily watched the spines gleefully as they toppled over one by one like dominoes.

Clearing his throat didn't do much good for the regaining of his composure, as the tops of his ears were still redder than Ron Weasley's. He spun around, hands clasped.

"All right, Lily," Josh said, his voice cracking the tiniest bit. "I'll make a small pit stop for your, uh…"

"Cramps."

"Yes. Precisely. C-cramps….Terrible hindrances they are, really. Cramps. Just terrible," Josh babbled as he skated past her to the door.

Lily skipped along behind him (suspiciously fluidly, too), grinning like the mad little devil she was.

" So Just the, uh, the…"

"The tampons," Lily supplied helpfully.

"Right, the—those."

"Uh!" Lily groaned again. Cramps. Motherfucking cramps.

"Lily?" Josh asked worriedly. "You alright?"

"Get me…some fucking Midol," she demanded through gritted teeth. "Right…now."

Though he would never admit it, one thing that scared Josh even more than dinosaurs, Sixers, or Commander Taylor was the unadulterated wrath of Lily Gillan. He had not yet experienced it in full, and he did not care to.

Needless to say, he was already scrambling to stand upright, his feet seeming to have lost all friction with the ground like he was in a cartoon.

"Right, yes, Midol!" he yelped. "Right away! I'll just be…I'll be back in a moment!"

"You sure as hell better be!" Lily shrieked. She did not sound jocular.

She heard the door shut behind him, and she was immediately left alone to decipher her own inexplicable thoughts. She quickly found an explanation for it all, and muttered it to herself as she hauled herself off the floor and upstairs to bed: "Bloody hormones."

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><p>Josh found himself in quite a dilemma. He stood tapping his foot nervously and biting the fingernails of one hand while the other held onto his elbow. What…to…do.<p>

Hère he was, in the Hygiene aisle, completely at a loss. There were so many options. Did he want mini? Maxi? Super-maxi? Should he ask Lily? (He then realized that to know the answer to this question he would have to be informed of the size of her…parts, and he also knew that she would take advantage of this question as best she could to humiliate him, so he wisely decided against that) And what about brand? Tampax Pearl? Playtex Sport? Carefree? Didn't Lily mention something about High-Techs? Did he want maximum protection without flexibility, or flexibility with a gentle glide? What was a 'gentle glide,' anyway? (He figured it out, and blushed). Should he get the other things, too? The peanut-shaped napkin thingies? There were too many choices! In the past he'd fancied himself fantastic at making the right decision in two seconds flat, but this…this was a whole different ball-game.

"What the fuck is this," Lily deadpanned when the Josh handed her the plastic grocery bag.

"It's, you know…that thing you wanted."

Lily looked up at him from her bed, blinking. "Josh." she informed him, "I sat up for this. And you give me this? This bullshit?"

"No-no, look!" Josh reached for the box, opened it quickly and pulled one out without thinking. "It's what you asked for! See? See?"

"No, dickwad," Lily growled, grabbing the vile object and unwrapping it with a vengeance. "Look. Look at this. Do you see this? This is cardboard. Cardboard, Josh! And you're asking me to insert this into my body? You want me to have to endure cardboard embedded INSIDE OF ME? What do you think I am, some kind of cardboard whore?" She seized the box and hurled it at him with the velocity of a baseball swing, despite the fact that he was about two feet away from her.

The cardboard fiends erupted out of the box onto him, and Josh leapt about in a frenzy.

"I will not stand for this! I deserve plastic! Sweet, beautiful plastic, Josh, do you hear me?"

"Yes, yes, I—" Josh wheezed, jumping towards the door while brushing Tampax off his body as though they were spiders.

"Now!" Lily roared with the equal lung capacity and potential for exacting decapitation of a lion.

She settled back into her pillows crossly as soon as the door shut behind Josh. Bloody cardboard…

The door opened and Josh's head popped in, his body too afraid to follow suit. "So I'm assuming that means you want 'gentle-glide'?" he winced.

"Yrghfrrr!" Lily heaved an errant Tampax at him, and he yelped, closing the door tightly behind him.

Lily had calmed down a bit by the time he returned the second time, and she'd also found time to mull over how depressing everything in her life was, and how she was fat and unlovable, and also where was all the food. All of this pondering left her in a considerably more fragile state than before.

"Li-ly," Josh hummed in the same cheerful and flat-out terrified tone with which one could assume Godzilla's mother wakes him for school. "Look what I brought you this time!"

Lily stared up at Josh with wide, hopeless eyes. Nothing was worth wishing for anymore. Everything was fucked. Also, where was all the food.

Sitting up with a resigned sigh, she opened the new box—which, oddly enough, didn't have a label on it—and out fell piles and piles of blue table napkins, cut in the wobbly fashion of a peanut.

Lily couldn't help it. She started laughing, softly at first, then louder and louder. Soon she was heaving in breaths and shaking, snorts unavoidable.

Josh was confused at first. Then, shakily, he laughed too, pointing at the napkins as if he'd gotten the joke all along (he still didn't). "Oh. Ha. Ha-ha. Yes, it's quite funny. Ha."

Just as he was starting to appreciate the true humor of the situation, and laughing harder now—blue peanut napkins! What an idiot!—he realized that Lily was sobbing uncontrollably.

"Oh, oh, oh, hey now, Lily what's wrong? Sshh, sshh, what's wrong?"

"It's just—you're being—s-s ni-hi-hice to meee!" Lily answered, shoulders shaking. "No one's ever done that f-for me befo-beforrrre!"

"What, cut you up homemade hygiene products with blue dinner napkins?"

Lily smiled. "You're funny," she said. She chuckled, and then blew her nose into his shoulder.

"Hey, hey, it's all right. Sh, you're going to be all right," Josh chimed, rocking her back and forth.

When she'd surpassed the wheezing-and-sobbing stage and reached the sniffling-and-eye-wiping stage, Lily asked him,"Why'd you decide to make them yourself?"

"The drug store didn't have blue ones," he answered simply. Lily looked at him for a moment, a small frown on her face, before laughing. Of course they had to be blue.

"Well, here. Let me help you out by being a tad more specific," Lily said, surprised by how well she was holding down the sarcasm. "Could you please go back to the general store and get me some gentle-glide maxi-size Kotex, please?"

"Kotex, that's it!" Josh exclaimed, slapping his palm against his forehead. "I'll get you some." He ran out the door a third time.

Later that night, Josh and a much more emotionally stable Lily sat in their seats at the Terra Nova Theatre to view the premiere of Maddy's latest dramatic installment, "Twelfth Night."

"How did you get me into this again?" Josh asked, reaching for some popcorn before Lily could devour it all.

"Well, first I yelled, then I cried, then I tried to seduce you, then it started working so you said if I'd be willing to put off the 'funny business' for a later date you'd cave and take me here."

"Ah, yes," Josh sighed. "What was I thinking when I decided to say hi to that sweet, innocent little girl in the waiting room?..."

"'She's hot, maybe I can actually get a girlfriend if I hit on her.'"

"Not in a million years!"

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><p><strong>So there you have it. Again, don't forget to tell me your thoughts on my possible multi-chapter with Lily! Reviews are love. <strong>


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